


From the Cheeky Random Files

by noseforahtwo



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Pretty much anybody - Freeform, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:48:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4237776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noseforahtwo/pseuds/noseforahtwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odds and ends, as I work toward a cohesive fic.</p><p>Because sometimes I fall in love with the sound of a character saying something, but can't shoehorn it into The Project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ugh, Crestwood

“Let’s hurry before any more spirits decide to try on a corpse.” Evelyn wiped wet hair from her forehead, scowling out from under her hat at the ruins of Old Crestwood.

“Whadda you mean Try On? It’s not like they’re shopping for a new helmet.” Sera plodded through the rain, her shoes tucked into her quiver after the third time one had been sucked off her foot by thick mud.

“Oh, but it is.” Dorian huddled farther under the eaves of a decrepit cabin and waited for the rest of them to catch up. “See that fellow, there?” The mage nodded at a shriveled pile of rags and bones in the road. “Not enough left to play with. But find a nice juicy one.”

Evelyn suppressed a greasy swell of nausea and needed no help from her imagination to picture just such a thing.

“Maybe the skin falls off,” Dorian shrugged, “But you can still walk round the house, pick up a book, wander off to the neighbor’s, beg a cuppa, murder something. Just to see if you like the fit.”

“That’s stupid.” Sera wrinkled her nose in disgust. “If demons want to be people, then they should get ALIVE ones. Walking the dead ones around just makes a sticky mess and wastes arrows.”

“As it happens, I agree.”

Evelyn ducked a sodden shrub to pull up another handful of elfroot as Sera circled the cabin. “Hey, Beardy! Beardy!”

Hand on his sword, Blackwall turned toward the elf’s voice. “Fuzzhead?”

“You know that game you told me about, with the greasy cheese?” Sera poked her head around the corner with a delighted gurgling laugh. “Does the winner get to fuck it?”

“What are you on about?”

The three of them crowded into the narrow gap between a mossy wall and the cliff face to follow Sera who pointed with a flourish at a corpse, bleached down to white bones.

It sat on a pile of reasonably good quality Antivan pornography, propped up against a wheel of cheese which looked to outweigh Blackwall.

Evelyn found herself considering the diameter of the cheese’s holes while Sera just looked hungry. “Absolutely not, Sera.”

“Back bit’s probably all right, though. I mean, his willy’s long since rotted off, and even if he was doin’ it with a leg bone instead, couldn’t have gotten all the way through.”

“Euurrghh.” Evelyn shuddered, squeezing past them all to be the first one out into the relatively fresher air of the road. “Nobody is eating Fade Touched cheddar. I don’t say this often, but as head of the Inquisition: I forbid it.”


	2. The Singing Maiden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Captain Internalized-Classism had some stuff to say. Plus I wanted Bull to chime in.

If nothing else, the Nightingale had seen to it Haven’s tavern was warm, dry and never short of strong drink. He knew enough about bards and serving girls and who they reported to in the mornings to keep his mouth shut even this deep in his cups. Something about the past few days made him crave noise, the false yappy cheer of soldiers who hadn’t formed a unit yet, who hadn’t spilled enough blood to feel like brothers. They gave him space, not sure about the Warden Constable who was always out with the Herald, and kept to himself when they came back reeking of blood and rift ichor.

The black-haired girl- her name was something Northern-she gave him a little smile as she swapped his empty tankard for a full one and went back around the bar, a little more swing in her hips this time. So he’d managed to scrub the worst of the reek off, then. Lady Trevelyan had left them at the gates, none of her usual chitchat for anybody, headed for her cabin, already peeling her gore spattered armor from her shoulders. The little bit of clean up they’d managed on the way back was all they’d had time or energy for, and she’d been in a snit since he’d knelt a foot away from her to wash his hands. 

“Shouting, ‘You’d better not be dead, mage.’ from fifteen feet away doesn’t count as checking to see if someone’s all right.” Evelyn had plunged her hands back into the gritty, icy stream and picked at the filth under her nails. “To say nothing of the fact that sarcasm doesn’t really suit you.” Her nose had wrinkled as she shook water from her hands, turning her back to him and pulling little pieces of bark from her hair.

“That Tevinter is a man grown. Doesn’t need me holding his hand through a fight,” he’d answered her. And if he did need a hand held, he thought, the brat could count on the Herald for it.

_Dorian darling, Dorian sweetheart, love._

Smarmy dandy soaking it up, all her affection. All her smiles, her laughter. Words that meant nothing when he had been the kind of man who took a woman in his bed for granted. The Captain, broad and dashing in his uniform, dark hair and blue eyes, easy enough to cadge a tavern girl into his lap, into a hand under her skirt, into his room. He called them lamb, or sweet. If he’d overshot the mark, was too drunk to thrust into her reliably, he would lie back while she rode him, breasts bouncing, hair tickling his bollocks when she tilted her head back, squealing with delight.

As if he’d conjured her up, the Herald slipped in the side door, and gave him a little nod when she caught him looking. She leaned her elbows on the bar and laughed at whatever The Iron Bull had to say while Flissa fetched her a drink. She’d done something mysterious and feminine with makeup, it made her eyes the only thing he could see until she laughed, and then it was the painted lips, red and full. Noblewomen had time and money for such things. They smelled good enough to eat, they laughed and flirted all day. Country girls could do the same, but there wasn’t the time. Not with babies and crops to be taken to market, the washing to be done. And why was he thinking on her painted mouth anyway?

That was the thing about highborn women. They made you want it, even knowing they thought you were shit on the heel of their pointy little shoes. But there wasn’t anything like fucking a woman you hated. Rilke-that was her name- here she came back again and this time he took the tankard from her soft little hand and she had an arm round his shoulders, sitting on his knee in a blink. While she had her lips near his ear, whispering something he paid little attention to, he thought back on his days in Orlais.

If Thom got a highborn wife back into her gilded bed and she wanted to just lay there, all arranged on the pillows, pretty as a picture, waiting for worship, he had to ruin it. Thom had done it so often he had a routine. Strip out of his uniform, but leave the trousers, make sure she can see he’s good and hard, but don’t pounce on her, that’s what she wants.

No, better to make her come to him, drag her up for a kiss by her arms- because she hadn’t planned on kissing a soldier, kissing was for love, for equals. But Thom liked a good kiss while he let her run her soft little hands over his chest, the scars on his sword arm. They all liked the scars. The husband who’d bought her fair and square from her parents was limp and he was pink, thin-skinned under his lace cuffs and gold mask, and Thom wanted to be sure she noted the difference in the usurper.

After she’d gotten him out of his trousers, he’d sink his hands in her hair just behind her ears and fuck her mouth a bit before yanking her off, smudging the makeup she’d so carefully applied. Push her face down into that feather bed and slam into her until his cock’s gone nearly numb from the pounding, then he can turn her over and go on for ages. Keep her hands away from her cunt while he’s working and soon she’s begging him to _pleasepleaseplease_ finish her off. Theatrics forgotten, she’d gasp and squeal and grunt when he changed the angle. No longer making a pretty picture, now she was just a woman with a hard cock sunk in her.

 _Pleasepleaseplease_. Which he will, he’ll make her come when he’s good and ready, and after a pause to feel her squeezing him, bring himself around with his own rough hand while he watches her shiver and pant, then paint her tits with his seed. No little bastards for Captain Thom.

It’s what he thinks on while the black-haired girl is grinding against his half-hard cock, her lips on his neck, but it isn’t as satisfying, picturing the Herald’s face there. She had been decent enough so far. 

She’d been better than decent, though friendliness from the nobility was either pity or mockery in his long experience. But the fact remained Evelyn was going to save the world, and he was going to help, Andraste save him.

*************

"Looks like maybe Furrows is gonna wipe that frown off tonight.” Evelyn turned to see what Bull meant. Far off in the smoky corner, she could barely make out the bearded Warden, with a lapful of someone. Someone with dark hair, and their lips on his neck from the looks of things. Was it jealousy, or garden variety embarrassment making her cheeks hot? “Well. Good on him.” Taking a long drink of her wine, she wiggled her eyebrows at Bull’s grin.“I’m not sure I’ll recognize him with a smile on his face tomorrow.”

“Gonna take more than a quick one against the back wall to put a smile on old Furrows. I bet he’s just as miserable with a wet dick as dry.”

She choked on her wine.

“Sorry, Boss. Maybe that one was a little over the line.”

She waved the apology away. “I’ve heard worse.” She wiped at her chin. “Besides, I think you’re probably right. Poor thing.”

“You feel sorry for everybody, Boss.”

That brought her up short. “I do?”

Bull nodded, waved for another round. “Yeah, you do.”

“I don’t think so. Do I seem like I go around pitying everyone here? I don’t even know why I would. To say nothing of how egotistical it sounds.”

Scratching at his goatee, Bull nodded and finished his ale, the wrinkles around his eye patch pronounced in the dim light of the fireplace. “You’re the kind of woman who brings home a stray dog. You can’t stand to see something in pain, or hungry. It worries at you. When you’re busy it goes away, but the second you’re sitting still, here it comes back again, and there’s no getting rid of the thought until you’ve done something about it.”

She stared at the wet scarred wood of the bar and had a long hard think about what Bull meant. “What should I do about that?”

Bull leaned in close, his big broad hand patting hers. “With a stray dog you’ve got two choices, feed it or put it out of its misery. The third is ignore it, but we’ve already established you can’t handle that one. Dorian you can take home; Sera, she’s a stray you can feed. The Warden? He’d rather somebody put him down quick. See, a dog doesn’t know why it’s not getting fed anymore. A bird with a broken wing can’t understand how. But your people here, there’s a reason why they are the way they are. And they don’t need you to save them.”

“Oh, well, then I’ll just go on back home and maybe the Breach will seal itself.”

"That’s different, Boss.” Bull leaned back, belched quietly behind an enormous palm. “The Breach is war. It’s gotta be done. But you can’t fix people without a whole lot more work than you humans are willing to put into it.”


	3. Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People were bound to notice.

“I heard the Inquisitor’s got darkspawn in her knickers.”

Evelyn’s next shot threaded between the two targets, glancing off the stones behind. She reached blindly for the next arrow, stuck point down in the soft earth at her side, and took careful aim as Krem had a seat on a bale of hay behind Sera. Heart hammering, she accepted that there was no chance she won this time, and that was twice now the little elf had beaten her.

“If you’ve paid him off,” Evelyn loosed her arrow and watched it wobble to one side of the bullseye. “Just to distract me, you should know I think it’s a shite move.” She wiped her damp brow on a sleeve and snuck a glance into the stable as Sera cackled.

“Fuck off, I don’t need to cheat, Inky.” Sera made three perfect shots, one after another.

“Show off.” Evelyn muttered.

“Anyway, whadda you care what Krem says? I knew you and Beardy were gonna shag before you did.”

“How is that, exactly?” _Because I remember it being an awful lot of effort on my part._

“Oh, bleedin’ obvious, you two.” Sera looked to the Chargers’ second in command for confirmation, which Krem gave her with a nasty little grin.

“You should have heard him moaning into his ale. We couldn’t wait for you to finally get around to it, Maker, but  he can whinge.” Krem stood and opened a pouch on his belt, drawing out a handful of coins. “Here you go, Sera. You were closer to the day.”

**_“You had bets?!”_** Evelyn screeched. In the stable the sound of a sword being honed stopped. Letting her bow drop, Evelyn said more quietly, “You had _bets_ on when we would-” She waved a hand.

Krem shrugged. “Yeah, but not for, like, a specific day. Just, uh…” he trailed off, ran a hand through his close cropped hair, looking chagrined. “You know, before or after the end of the month, or…something.”

Sera didn’t even pretend to be ashamed, but counted her winnings with a happy little sigh.

Evelyn shook her head and used the walk to the targets and back, arrows in hand, to slow her panicked heart. _It won’t be a secret long, anyway. May as well get used to it._ “I wish I had known, I could have made a little extra money.”

“You made him wait long enough.” Krem sat back down, favoring one knee, still wrapped in tight bandages.

With another look into the dim stable, where she could just barely make out Blackwall’s silhouette against the fire, she laughed. “Me? Who says I was the one dragging her feet?”

Sera held out a hand wordlessly, and Krem grumbled but surrendered another small stack of coins.

Evelyn gave them both a two fingered salute.

“Told you, Socks. He was all going on about his _Serious Important Warden Shite_ ” Sera rolled her eyes. “Oh, Wardens can’t involve themselves in other people’s lives, what if there’s a blight, oh I’m too old and too whatever.”

Evelyn smiled despite herself. Sera pointed and crowed, “Knew it! See, I _knew_ he’d been feeding her that guff.”

“Stab me.” Krem was not impressed, and peered into the shadows at the Warden, who was obviously listening. “That’s not how you talk a girl out of her smalls.” With an appraising look, he asked, “That sort of thing do it for you, then, Boss? Whinging?”

Taking up her weapon, Evelyn relaxed and let herself find the center of the target. “I’ll be honest with you, Krem.” She fired, pulled another from the ground and said very clearly, “When he gets going like that I stop listening.”

“I told him to shut up about it. I told him, it’s dead easy makin’ a girl happy.”

“He said he wants to make me happy? He said that, out loud?” Evelyn knew from their looks of tolerant disdain that she was blushing.

“No.” Sera began, and Evelyn turned back to her practice before they could see how the bottom went out of her stomach. “He said ‘Worrying about what will make a woman happy is a fine way to wind up with your head in a noose’.”

_That sounds more like it._ Evelyn sighed.

“But I told him it’s dead easy, right? Once you’re down there, You start out like a kitten with a bowl of milk, right, and you end like a dog eating oatmeal.” Sera ducked a currycomb aimed at her head. “Oi!” She shouted at Blackwall, who had turned his back to them and picked up his sword and whetstone. “That’s not on! Shite Arse.”


	4. Little Green Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shmoopy first kiss thing, which turned out to be unsuitable for The Project. Poor Evelyn's Problem Bear is not so easily wooed. But I still like it, it's as sweet as I can manage, which when you're doing Blackwall pov, is still angsty.

“Solas says we’re in for a storm tomorrow or the next day.”

“We’ve been lucky so far.” _Lucky_. Lucky to find her alone. Though it was exactly the sort of thing he should be avoiding. The sight of her down here in this cluttered hole full of books was enough to make his hand clench on the spine of what he’d brought back. He tore his eyes from the sliver of skin between jumper and trousers that showed when she reached up to grab at a high shelf. “It was bound to break.”

She nodded, running a hand across the books in front of her. “Gatsi’s men have finished another wing. It isn’t ideal, but they’re livable.” A glance over her shoulder, her hair piling up in the curve of her neck and Maker, did he want to bury his nose there. “Why don’t you take one of the rooms on the corner?”

_Because you people still make me nervous. Because lies pile up like dead leaves when I have to make conversation._ “I’m comfortable, my lady.”

She made a huffy noise. It was all woman, that sound. Petulant. “I don’t see how. You’ll freeze.”

“I’ve slept rough in a blizzard before. Here, under shelter, with a fire? Nothing to it.”

“I worry I’ll get up one morning and find a big bearded block of ice in the stable.” He laughed at her, and that made her turn round to scowl up at him. 

“I’m serious. The last time it snowed I was out on my balcony at midnight looking to make sure there was still smoke coming out of the loft down there.”  She hopped up to sit on the edge of the desk with a frown, tucking one leg under the other.

“My lady-” His eyes were drawn to the way the leather of her trousers stretched.

Evelyn slapped the book in her hand down on the desk, sending a dust devil scurrying into the air. “Warden. Don’t interrupt.” 

The color was back in her cheeks, even in the eerie green glow of the little study. “You’re no use to me with frostbite. Out there we _have_ to rough it, and I know even our version of roughing it is no hardship for you. But there is no good reason for you to sleep out in the weather all winter.” She arched a brow at him, every inch the imperious Marcher Lady now. “Don’t be a berk. I’m not trying to…domesticate you.” She waited, tapping her fingers on the stack of books beside her when he shelved his own books in silence. It didn’t make as much sound as it should have on the moldy cover. This far below Skyhold, nothing stayed dry.

“I was told not to interrupt.” He tilted his head to read the spine of a thick record on Chantry history. The flash of irritated amusement on her face was enough to make him edge closer to her perch, the half-crumbled tiles under his boots crunching. “If you’ve finished? Thank you, but I’ll pass.” It was odd having her at eye level. Despite himself, her being shirty was heating him up a bit. It always did.

“I have enough to worry about. If you are sleeping under a proper roof in a proper bed I can take you off the list.”

“Strike me off, my lady. There’s nothing to fear in a little cold weather.” He was right up next to the desk, the smell of her hair sweet as she tossed it over a shoulder with another little huffy frown. “A proper roof and a proper bed now will only make me soft when I’m back in the field.” 

She licked her lips, quick, nervous; caught the lower in her teeth. The sight started a heavy throb in his cock.

Her pale eyes -so much like his own- flicked over him. “Then sleep on the floor. I’ll have someone take the bed out and spread a few hay bales so you feel more at home.” 

He was a fighter, a killer, and a killer could have stopped her hand before it got near him. But he was also a fool, so he didn’t. A hard squeeze at his arm, testing his flesh with her thumb caught him up short. 

“You aren’t at risk of going soft.” She knew exactly what she was about, the tart. Another flash of her tongue over her plump bottom lip and he ached to follow it with his own. Lady Trevelyan couldn’t look more like a woman angling for a kiss if she had pursed her painted lips and fluttered her eyelashes.

“Enough of that,” he sighed and took her hand away from his sleeve. This flirting had gone as far as he could manage. “My lady, we can’t make good on any of this.” _Now let go, you greedy sod._

The bones of her wrist were apparent in his grip, he followed the blue lines of veins with his thumb. He had to have some part of her, something small, before he listened to good sense. The sharp breath she took at the touch of his lips on her pulse went straight to his groin. Her fingers curled into the edge of his beard, brushed his jaw before he pressed a kiss into her palm. The urge to list all his lies into her pink skin came over him. He kept his tongue busy tracing the salty line of a scar just below her thumb. Her gasp of surprise had him hard, painfully so. One more press of his lips to the chilly pads of her fingers and he dared to open his eyes and have a look at her. 

_Maker’s breath, she’s shaking like a leaf._

Twining her fingers into the lacing down the center of his gambeson, she pulled with the hand not held captive, but he had to resist. The taste of her was gone and he had to get away before she tempted him into more lunacy _. I could spread her out here, quick, in the books and candles and dust, so I can hear that noise again._ He shook his head sharply as she leaned in, but she only twisted her wrist in his grasp until he opened his hand. Her fingers dragged slowly across his palm, tracing the sword calluses in turn, down to his fingertips. Drawing breath to tell her _No, no more_ \- all that left him was a great shuddering sigh.

_Kiss her, then that’s the end of it. Taste her here and now and that’s all._

At the last moment, her heavy lidded eyes shut and her breath ghosted over him. A sweet little hum of approval as their lips met, brushed lightly as she tilted to just the right angle. He pressed in, she eased away but swayed right back, the barest tip of her tongue teasing him to see if he would follow. 

It was impossibly warm where he slid his big, troublesome hand under her hair to hold her steady, his fingers spanning the fragile curve of her nape, thumb at the pulse in her throat. The trembling that shouldn’t be fucking encouraging him doubled. Evelyn opened for him with a whimper and a sweep of her tongue but he wanted that plump lip between his teeth. 

She tasted like something familiar though nothing he could name as they each sought the upper hand. Answering his nips and sucking bites with her own, she met him at each turn until his arm around her waist pulled her tight to his side. The fingers tangled in his laces clutched harder as she went boneless with a moan.

Free to plunder he tipped her back over his arm, the taste of her throat salty sweet as he worked his way to the curve of her shoulder, nosing the edge of her jumper aside. Delighted gasps and another breathless moan were his reward when he turned back and bit gently at her earlobe, gathering her silky hair out of his way with his other hand. The smell of her made him light headed, her little noises were practically begging him to press her down beneath him, pull her clothes aside and fill his hands with her. 

Fingers in his hair, Evelyn purred his stolen name. 

He straightened up enough to get a good look at her. She was a bit dazed with pleasure, mouth swollen and a faint red mark on her white throat as she blinked at him in surprise. A mad impulse struck him, to take her up to her rooms, walk her right past those highborn shits in her Hall. Fuck her the rest of the day and night, leave her sleeping. Gather his things and ride hard for the Storm Coast, present himself in the Deep Roads. He could plunge into a pack of Hurlocks and die with the smell of her still between his fingers, with the red crescents of her nails in his skin. 

But as he pulled her upright then back onto her feet, he noticed a healing bruise at her temple. She needed him to stand between her and the demons the mark drew to her like moths. That was what mattered. That was how his end would come.

“My lady-” He had to find a way to say, _I can’t be doing that again. Next time you’ll have your legs around me and I won’t say no._

“Don’t interrupt, Warden.” She smiled up at him, sly and a little wary. “You’re about to say something unnecessarily gloomy. I can see it on your face.” 

Stretching onto her toes, she pressed a quick kiss to his bristly jaw before taking the three books atop the stack on the desk and turning away with a little laugh. “If you take a room inside, you’ll be that much closer.” A look over her shoulder that twisted in his guts as she crossed into the gloom of the passage, “We could do that sort of thing whenever there’s a spare second.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Needed a break from the Captain Thom the Prick furor on the tumbls. He's such a jerk! A sexy, sexy jerk.


End file.
